Fantasy sports: Many happy to see return of Gronkowski

It's finally here. Giant men are back on the practice field, signaling the time when we can forget about our fantasy baseball teams.

Because seriously, has everyone on my team spent time on the disabled list this season? OK, not EVERYONE, just everyone but Dustin Pedroia, who instead has forgotten how to hit.

The turn to football has been especially welcome in these parts because it came with the return of Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who could be more machine now than man. Gronk comes with a presence that makes everyone around him better according to stats splashed across every local sportscast heading into training camp.

The numbers that matter most in this space, though, are the ones that say Gronkowski is among the most elite of elite fantasy tight ends. In 50 career games, he has caught 226 passes for 3,255 yards and 42 touchdowns from a position that doesn't always provide much offense.

The numbers that matter second most, though, are the ones that say Gronkowski only played in 11 games in 2012 and seven in 2013. He caught 15 TDs in those 18 games, so we loved when he was there, he just wasn't there enough.

There is only one other member of that elite of elite TE group, and since he's not coming off 1,747 injuries (though he did have some plantar fascia issues), the Saints' Jimmy Graham is by far the fantasy game's top tight end. He caught 86 passes for 1,215 yards and 16 touchdowns last season, numbers that would make you happy if they came from a top-flight wide receiver, but the NFL even took offseason action to let everyone know that Graham really is a tight end.

Those numbers are so good, and the drop from them so steep, that I slate Gronkowski in the second spot because he is the only player with the ability to match Graham.

This does give a demotion to the Broncos' Julius Thomas, who I have seen ranked second in multiple lists. Not only that, I'm pushing Thomas down to four.

Hold in your gasps, I think it actually makes sense. For someone who entered last season with one reception in five career games, the 65 catches for 788 yards and 12 touchdowns he recorded were a surprising revelation that improved the championship chances of whatever team picked him up. Thomas was much stronger in the start of the season, though, as opposing defenses also learned about him and seem to have adapted. He had two 100-yard receiving games in the first five games, but none after that and he also scored half of his TDs in that span. It wasn't that he was bad, he just evened out over the final of the season.

The 49ers' Vernon Davis, though, has been a strong tight end for years and last year even had more receiving yards (850) and touchdowns (13) than Thomas, but it wasn't as noteworthy since it wasn't as unexpected.

If you cannot get one of those four guys in your draft, don't get pulled into any type of run on selecting tight ends. At that point, the value is gone and even if you end up with the low-end No. 1 guys, many of them have as much potential as the guys you would have gotten rounds before.

To help with this strategy, here are a couple of guys available in those later stages who could still help you:

At the end of the 2013, Miami's Charles Clay had serviceable numbers of 69 catches, 759 yards and six touchdowns. He was not one who put together games that were going to win your week's matchup on its own, but he had 12 games of at least four catches, so he was someone who didn't kill you.

Similarly, Chicago's Martellus Bennett may not have stood out in an offense that features Brandon Marshall, but at the end of the season he still had 65 catches for 759 yards and five scores. He will not be the biggest part of the Bears' offense (he only was targeted more than 10 times once all season), but he was targeted at least five times in 13 games and he did well when he was.

Remembering Gordon

In last week's column, I listed my first-half fantasy baseball all-stars. Due to an unforeseen error (also known as neglecting to copy and paste a bit from my notes file), the shortstop position did not appear.

So here let it be known that the Dodgers' Dee Gordon is doing rather well as we ride his SS position eligibility from last season.

He went into the all-star break with a .292 batting average and 43 steals. The two homers and 25 RBIs mean that you need to make up for power numbers elsewhere, but one can absorb that for having drafted the majors' stolen base leader around the 20th round.